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Oct
9

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How to Launch your Startup with a Giveaway Campaign

Category: Beginners Guide, Business Strategy, Online contest Tags: , , , 1 Comment

You are a startup, and you have just released a new product, and you would like to let a maximum of people to know there is something new and valuable in the marketplace. After you have sent your tweets, Facebook status updates and emailed your friends and contacts, you still don’t notice anything great happening. Your website traffic gets back to 20 unique visits a day, and Techcrunch/Mashable never answered your message.

It’s time to think about some proven ways to get more people into your website at a low cost your unfunded startup could afford, and also something you can have control over: Giveaways Contests

Giveaways Contests are one of the most effective way to entice people to do something for you. Here are few steps you can follow to promote your startup with a giveaway Campaign.

What is a giveaway?

A giveaway is a marketing tactic where something is given away for free. Companies often use giveaways to spread the word about their products, to make their brand more memorable in customers’ minds, or to get people to try something new in the hopes that they will continue to buy the product.

Big companies know well how effective giveaways campaigns are, and do thousands of giveaways campaigns a year. Small businesses still have to grasp  the concept and use it to their advantage, like the big guys!

Define your target audience

The first step in your overall effort is to define precisely your target audience, or the very people you want to attract to your giveaway promotion. Don’t write “I want to reach students”, but “I want to reach students who are interested into become entrepreneurs”.

Select your prize

A good definition of our audience will help you know what kind prize to attach to your promotion. Women with a newborn would love to receive a huge discount on pampers diapers, or will fiercely compete to win “1 year Free supply of pampers diapers delivered to their door”. Startup founders will fiercely compete to win a $1000 Facebook ads credits or Google Adwords credits.

Chose your price regarding the intrinsic motivation of your target audience, and keep in mind to select a prize that could be somehow related to your brand.

A caution here. It’ll be inefficient to use your own startup product for a giveaway when no one knows about you, or your brand is not strong enough to entice a lot of people.

Use an online tool to organize your contests

There are many tools online to organize contests. Most of them are similar to Goodbuzz, and can be equally capable in helping you manage your online contests. Here are few of them:

- Strutta.com
- Wildfireapp.com
- Rafflecopter.com
- Contestmachine.com
- Giveawaytools.com

You can all give them a trial, however if you want to go with the most simple, and the most focused on marketing results, you might give your preference to Goodbuzz. Typically, any user of Goodbuzz widget would get 30% to 50% traffic increase to his/her website in less than 30 days.

The main value of Goodbuzz is that it makes it easier for small business and event organizers to create and run a giveaway. The widget manages everything for the advertiser, from participants registration to the prize claiming. The pages are clean. The advertiser has access to all participants contacts, and also real time statistics about sharing and participation. The advertiser could also customize in advance what people will share on social medias making the impact of their campaign more powerful.

Here are some feedback we have received from our users.

“We have evidenced that GoodBuzz Share to Win solution yields 7 times more Sharing activity compared to traditional Tweet and Like this Buttons.
In addition, a single Share via GoodBuzz yields 11 Visits to our web site. We have found that integrating GoodBuzz campaign as an integral part of web site user experience is the Best way to deploy social media sharing in a fun and intuitive, and most rewarding way.”

Testimonial from Joiku.com – they have ran about 8 promotions with Goodbuzz: http://www.joiku.com/share-to-win

I did see about a 30% increase in page views and visitors, but I didn’t promote it as fiercely as I should have.  I was really just giving Goodbuzz a test run to see if it would be good to use for one of my clients.
Thanks so much!

Testimonial from Christa Wojciechowski – webbella.com
twitter.com/webbella
facebook.com/webbella 

4. Promote your contests

Even if your promotion prize is very attractive, you still need to spend some time and resource to promote it:

  • Post the promotion on your blog
  • Insert a link to the promotion page into your newsletters
  • Advertise the promotion using your current advertising channels: adwords, facebook ads, linkedin ads, banners, sponsorship, PR, twitter, etc.

Remember, don’t post your giveaways contest on contests directories or contests aggregation portals. You’ll get lot of entries but mainly from “professional” freebies seekers. They are not interested in your business. They use automated tools to enter hundreds of contest daily, and they will unsubscribe from your list instantly afterward. They want only your prize, and don’t care about who you are, and what your business is all about.

5. Monitor your progress toward your goals

The goal for a giveaway contest could be branding, list building, community engagement or publicity. Your giveaways tools should be able to help you get an instant idea of how your promotion is doing, eventually contact your best evangelists or supporters who would give you additional feedback about your brand and products.

Here is a typical dashboard we provide for Goodbuzz users:

6. Contact the winner and deliver your prize

You should build trust in your brand by delivering the prize you’ve promised to the winners. Announcing the winner could be the moment you chose to get your news in front of all the participants into your contest. Eventually, you can take a shortcut to give a discount to non-winners, and announce upcoming events or products.

7. Keep in on touch, but don’t spam

Once you have build a mailing list or get followers from your promotion, make sure you keep in touch with your new contacts. Engage them with new contests, and provide them information that might enhance your brand.

If you have any question, or need help to create and run a giveaway contest, you can contact me at mk@goodbuzz.org

Jul
18

By

I love Yahoo, Again

Category: Business Strategy Tags: , , , Leave a Comment

By hiring Marissa Mayer, a 6 months pregnant woman, as his new CEO, Yahoo made history.

I remember few years ago, recruiters were asking female candidates if they plan to have baby in some time, meaning we hate women who would get pregnant. Now, a Fortune 500 company hired a 6 months pregnant woman as CEO.

This is historic, like the election of an African-American as president of the United States. It’s also a victory for women in the corporate world.

Marissa Mayer

Jul
3

By

Top 50 books that Radically change Capitalism

Category: Business Strategy Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

A crowd-sourced list of 50 books that capture the spirit of breakthrough capitalism

by John Elkington is Executive Chairman of Volans, co-founder of SustainAbility, blogs at www.johnelkington.com. His latest book, The Zeronauts: Breaking the Sustainability Barrier, is launched on 29 May

Books

1. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo,

 

2. What’s Mine Is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption Is Changing the Way We Live, by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers

 

3. Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World, by Ian Bremmer

 

4. World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, by Lester Brown

 

5. Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, by Peter Diamandis and Steve Kotler

 

6. The Zeronauts: Breaking the Sustainability Barrier, by John Elkington

 

7. The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring on the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World, by Paul Gilding

 

8. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet, by Tim Jackson

 

9. Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, by Amory Lovins

 

10. Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future, by Ian Morris

 

11. The Courageous State: Rethinking Economics, Society and the Role of Government, by Richard Murphy

 

12. Economyths: Ten Ways That Economics Gets It Wrong, by David Orrell

 

13. 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years, by Jørgen Randers

 

Breakthrough longlist

14. Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: How Interface Proved that You Can Build a Successful Business Without Destroying the Planet, by Ray Anderson

15. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo

16. The Sixth Wave, by James Bradfield Moody and Bianca Nogrady

17. Screw Business as Usual, by Richard Branson

18. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by Michael Braungart and William McDonough

19. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, by Ha–Joon Chang

20. The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick and Will (Eventually) Feel Better, by Tyler Cowen

21. The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as if the Future Matters, by Diane Coyle

22. Megachange: The World in 2050, from The Economist

23. Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers

24. The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing, by Lisa Gansky

25. Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert

26. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

27. Assault on Reason, by Al Gore

28. Debt: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber

29. The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business, by Umair Haque

30. Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being – and Why No One Saw It Coming, by Paul Hawken

31. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins

32. Where Do Good Ideas Come From? The Natural History of Innovation, by Steven Johnson

33. Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business is Better Business, by David Jones

34. Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

35. Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, by Michio Kaku

36. What Technology Wants, by Kevin Kelly

37. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein

38. Creativity: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer

39. Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes, and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL, by Roger Martin

40. Chandran Nair, Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet, see here

41. Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway

42. Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, see here

43. Design Can Change the World, by Emily Pilloton

44. The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World, by Jeremy Rifkin

45. The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century, by Carne Ross

46. Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World, by Nicholas Shaxson

47. Macrowikinomics, by Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams

48. When a Billion Chinese Jump: Voices from the Frontline of Climate Change, by Jonathan Watts

49. Imagine Design Create, edited by Tom Wujec

50. Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China, Jianying Zha

Jun
25

By

The top best business quotes of the Day

Category: Business Strategy Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

“If you want staff to give great service, give great service to staff.”—Ari Weinzweig

“Knowledge becomes obsolete incredibly fast. The continuing professional education of adults is the No.1 industry in the next 30 years.”—Peter Drucker

“Human creativity is the ultimate economic resource.”—Richard Florida

“Every child is born an artist. The trick is to remain an artist.”—Picasso

“In some sense you can argue that the science fiction scenario is already starting to happen. The computers are in control. We just live in their world.”—Danny Hillis

Via Tom Peters

Jun
10

By

45 lessons learned from my participation to an Accelerator: StartupSauna

Category: Business Strategy Tags: , , , 2 Comments

1. Business is all about discipline. Disciplined People, engaged in disciplined thought, taking disciplined action. (Quoting from Jim Collins)

2. Not all people wandering are lost (Quoting from Steve Blank). If you can’t bear the uncertainty, whatever your current success, your business will not survive a transition.

3. In the early stage of your startup you should look more for people who will say “NO” to you. The more “NO” you receive, the more your chance to succeed. “NO” is your best ally. Ask people “What is wrong with your idea?”, “Why this won’t work?”, “why they don’t want to invest”, “why they won’t recommend you to a friend”.

4. Strategy is less about what you decide to do. A big part of it is about what you decide NOT to do. (Quoting from Steve Jobs)

5. You need a blend of high humility and high confidence to be successful.

6. Listen, because most of your assumptions are wrong, like most of your believes. Failure to listen is your enemy N°1

7. The “5 why” from Coach Aape : ‘Why you are here’, … ‘why you are doing what you are doing’, … ‘why are you the best to be here’, … ‘Why you are the best to do what you are doing…. and … ‘why it’s the right time to do what you are doing’

8. Most Surprises in Startups are negative. be prepared!

9. Remember this one. NEVER NEVER give the right of refusal to any investor. period.

10. Build relationship with VC before you need them.

11. Lessons learned #StartupSauna: Keep strong focus. Avoid Distraction. You need people to believe in your ability to execute!

12. Think Big, and Keep optimizing constantly your time, your content, your product, your pitch, your positioning

13. The key to leadership in your market is to do customers acquisition better than your competitors.

14. Failure = failure to recognize change and pivot fast. Don’t fall in love with your vision!

15. Lessons learned #StartupSauna Head Coach Ilka: the key to a startup success is to find a group of customers with repeat sales.

16. Lessons learned #StartupSauna Coach Ramine: Keep your promises!

17. Give more than you take. make it easy for people to extract value from you!

18. Map your medias campaigns like your do for your sales.

19. Medias are made of people. Start building your network early Lower the risk for journalist to write about you

20. Consider medias as one of your customers, and use them as part of your marketing approach

21. Going to market too large will cloud or clutter your view. Focus, prove your numbers, then scale!

22. Lessons learned #StartupSauna: What is your success formula? if you don’t have one, you are doomed. First you prove your formula then Scale

23. Scale only if you have proven that you have a formula (that works)! Find the right formula first!

24. if a person in your team doesn’t have motivation, the leader has to create a motivation for him.

25. if there is no competition, it means there is no market for it.

26. Be fearless. Ask yourself “what will I do right now if I was fearless! Life favors risk takers

27. Understand your market. Invest time to understand your market, as much as you spend to develop your product.

28. Build a culture. Invest time to develop a culture, as much as you spend to develop your product.

29. Say No often. Keep your eyes on your goals, what is important, your end vision. Avoid Vanity fairs!

30. Build a culture. Everything in your startup will be the fruit of your culture.

31. Focus your message on the one thing you are the first to do for a target group or market to achieve a certain goal

32. Create a category that you could be the first in and dominate!

33. Select a target market then write a value proposition that clicks with that target group, and be the best to serve them.

34. there is only two sources of competitive advantage: (1) the ability to learn more about your customers faster than the competition, and (2) the ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition. (quoting Jack Welsh, former CEO of GE)

35. Business model innovation is key to a startup success, but USE proven models when available

36. It’s all about the relationship. People invest in people they like, trust, and could champion.

37. Before hiring, Give some homework to the final candidates.

38. Avoid money chasers, and attract only passionate people.

39. Speak like if you were talking to one person in the room. Create a one-to-one conversation even if they are hundreds here.

40. Respect your audience: before your pitch spend 3-5 seconds to look into people, grab their attention, be a center of attention #startupsauna

41. Whatever happens, always stage your “Come back” to “Show them” you have guts :)

42. Setbacks make you or break you, depend on how you react to them.

43. Culture eats strategy at breakfast – Peter Drucker

44. Culture is the single best asset for any business; include startups (Culture eats strategy…

45. Before you revenge, Dig two graves!

Jan
28

By

My Personal Secret to Build Relationship on Twitter and Generate Free leads

Category: Business Strategy, Event Promotion Tags: , , , Leave a Comment

Jan
7

By

GoodBuzz Utility and Sales Road Map

Category: Business Strategy, Event Promotion, Peer Referral Network Leave a Comment

The idea of a “peer referral network for event promotion” started, about 3 years ago, as a way to help a desperate friend. Then we invited more people to try it. But slowly and steadily things started to take off, more and more people were joining. And you know what … We got excited.

Basically, we have created Goodbuzz to help event organizers who don’t have a lot of money to promote their event. They can use the peer referral system to reach more people in less time than they ever thought possible. But recently, we have seen companies with lot of money using GoodBuzz, and we have asked them why, and they’ve said it’s because the system works better than the other event promotion tactics they were using.

From then, we knew that this idea had the power to transform the whole event marketing and promotion industry.

Now, we are slowly opening the system to more and more event organizers and promoters to join, and below is a basic tool we have used to design Goodbuzz and still use to monitor our progress.

GoodBuzz utility and Sales Road Map - Event promotion and marketing

GoodBuzz utility and Sales Road Map

Apr
13

By

The only two sources of competitive advantage for Any business.

Category: Business Strategy, leadership Tags: , , , Leave a Comment

Strategy

Strategy

Former GE CEO Jack Welch once said, We have only two sources of competitive advantage:

  1. the ability to learn more about our customers faster than the competition, and
  2. the ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition.

How can you put this powerful insight into practice to win, and grow your small business?

Apr
9

By

Forget The Old networking. Build your Profitable Referral Network.

Category: business networking, Business Strategy, leads group software, Leads Groups / Referral Networks, Linkcrafter Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Business Networking

Business Networking

The Old Networking sucks!

Have you tried networking for your Business? Can You measure the business outcomes of your networking effort? Is it worth the time, the stress, the uncertainty, the investment you devoted to it?

Recent studies and testimonials on business networking are revealing that 92 to 98% of professionals and business people on social or professional networking websites and clubs obtain No business impact from the time and money they invest in networking, and are unable to measure any impact they assert.

Leads groups

Leads groups are the most successful marketing effort for your dollar that you can find anywhere.

While leads groups have always been immensely successful in building mutually beneficial relationships, combining them with social media has taken them to a whole new level.

Linkcrafter has made things much more easier with Online leads groups.

With Online leads group Members and managers of leads group don’t even have to leave the comfort of their own home or office to take part in rewarding professional relationships. It’s easier than ever to keep in contact with leads and ensure that groups stay focused and motivated.

Superior advantages for Online leads groups

A recent study has found that taking traditional leads groups online make them more profitable to its members:

  • Online leads groups members receive 5 to 11 times more sales leads and business opportunities than a member of a traditional leads group.
  • A typical Online leads groups member save up to 8 hours a month in leads group meetings compared to a member of old style leads group, But receive much more leads.
  • Joining an online leads group is Free.

But Wait, there is more.

Online leads groups beat traditional leads groups in these 4 compartments:

  • Members and managers don’t even have to leave the comfort of their home or office to take part in rewarding professional relationships
  • They are less stressful, less time consuming, and you can join or start a group for Free.
  • No need of the 4 meetings a month. Passing leads and tracking leads results all happen online.
  • You can afford to join several local or national leads group. It doesn’t take more time nor more fee.

Leads are vital to the success of any business, so why not get back in the game today?

Start Your own profitable leads group today

Linkcrafter is the N°1 solution provider for Leads groups and referral networks in the USA and in Europe.

There is no other place where you can find a set of powerful marketing tools as on Linkcrafter. For example, capturing leads is not limited to human to human interactions. Linkcrafter made available powerful widgets and survey scripts that work to capture leads even when you are sleeping. The Internet never sleeps. These bots are constantly putting you in front of potential clients and customers and bring you business.

Join to Grow.

To join, Follow this link: http://linkcrafter.com

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